Homosexuality convictions: Senate reexamines rehabilitation bill

Recognition for nearly 50,000 convicted individuals. The Senate is examining for the second time this Tuesday, May 6, a bill paving the way for the rehabilitation of individuals convicted of homosexuality in France, with disagreements to come over the possibility of including a compensatory component in this bill.

The text by Socialist Senator Hussein Bourgi, already adopted in both houses of Parliament but in two different versions, aims to have France recognize its policy of discrimination against homosexuals between 1942 and 1982.

Two articles of the penal code of the time are targeted: the first set a specific age of consent for homosexual relations and the other aggravated the punishment for public indecency when committed by two people of the same sex.

Around 10,000 convictions were handed down under the article, which established a specific age of consent, and around 40,000 for the reason of public outrage against homosexual decency, according to Régis Schlagdenhauffen, a lecturer at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS).

In addition to this recognition by the Nation, the left in the Senate hopes to see the reintroduction of a financial compensation mechanism for those unduly convicted, namely an allowance of 10,000 euros, plus 150 euros per day of deprivation of liberty.

This measure, which appeared in the initial text, will be at the heart of the debates: it was approved by the National Assembly but it does not convince the right-wing and centrist groups, which are in the majority in the Senate.

The upper house thus removed this mechanism in committee, which it deemed "legally complex," according to the report by Republican Senator Francis Szpiner, who notably feared an "extremely dangerous precedent" that could open the way to multiple disputes.

Hussein Bourgi denounces the "symbolic violence" of refusing compensation: "Why are LGBT people denied what has rightly been granted to other victims of mistreatment?" he asks.

France notably compensates the Harkis, those French Muslims recruited as auxiliaries to the French army during the Algerian War (1954-1962), abandoned at the end of the conflict.

While there is little doubt that the text will be adopted by the upper house, the disagreement that appears to persist between senators and deputies will force the National Assembly to take up the bill again for a second reading before this text, which is supported by LGBT+ advocacy associations, comes into force.